Monthly Archives: November 2010

There was no reason to suspect that the 2010 midterms would be any different than prior elections. The pundits typical reaction promotes the conventional wisdom that it was a GOP blowout of epic proportions – even bigger than 1994. The party in power nearly always loses seats in the midterms. But the true number is unknown. The unconventional wisdom is that in every election the Democrats do significantly better than the recorded vote indicates. The 2010 midterms were no exception. The GOP won the House big-time. The Democrats held on to the Senate.

We had a hint of what was coming in 2010. In the Massachusetts special election for Ted Kennedy’s seat, Martha Coakley won the hand-counted districts but lost the machine counts. She conceded long before the votes were counted.

In the South Carolina Democratic primary, Vic Rawl easily won the hand-counted paper ballots, but unknown Alvin Green won the machine counts. In a pitiful post-election “investigation”, Green was the chosen candidate despite the overwhelming evidence of fraud.

Given what we know about election fraud, what does the combination of pre-election registered and likely voter polls, preliminary and final exit polls and recorded vote data indicate? Well, we still have unverifiable elections and a strange reluctance of the Democratic leadership to do anything about it.

This post-election analysis utilizes final likely and registered state and national pre-election polls along with preliminary and final exit polls. The 2010 Midterms Election Forecast Model projected that the final LV pre-election polls would closely match the recorded vote – and they did.

Final exit polls are always forced to match the recorded vote. Table 3 shows the late adjustments made to the exit polls – with no additional respondents. On the other hand, pre-election RV polls have closely matched the unadjusted exit polls. At least they did until 2008, when the National Election Pool (the consortium of six mainstream media giants which pay the exit pollsters) decided that it was bad for business to release the pristine data.

As usual, the pundits are quoting the final exit polls as gospel. They warn Obama that he must move to the center – as if he has been part of the “professional left” all along. They never question the official results. That’s why they’re pundits: they know that they are paid to present the recorded vote as if it represented the will of the voters. So they avoid the subject of systemic election fraud – otherwise they might find themselves out of a job.

Early Votinghttp://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM176_101027_early_vote_memo.pdf
Early voting statistics showed that Democrats were winning in key races. The Democratic National Committee collected early vote data across the country, and in 11 key states, Democrats cast more ballots than Republicans. In early voting Democrats outpaced the Republicans in NV, IA, CA, WI, WA, IL and WV.

The Republican ‘surge’/’wave’ dud not materialize in the early vote. In early results of distinct vote history levels (mid-term voters / presidential-year only voters), Democratic early voting was comparable, and often higher, than Republican voting. In many key districts, Democrats outpaced Republicans both in raw ballots cast and participation rates.

National (Generic) Exit Poll vs. Pre-election polls
As expected, the final 2010 National Exit Poll margin discrepancy from the average of 30 pre-election Generic LV polls was a near-perfect -0.62.

When the returning voter mix was set to the 2008 recorded vote, the discrepancy from the 19 pre-election RV poll average was an even lower 0.07%.

State exit polls vs. Pre-election polls
The final state exit poll (i.e. recorded vote) discrepancy from the average LV poll was 1.52%.

When the returning voter mix was set to the 2008 recorded vote, the discrepancy from the RV poll average was an even lower 0.83%.

It was expected that the Democrats were going to lose seats in the Senate and House. They were surely going to lose in Arkansas. They did. They were expected to hold on to CA, WA, WV, NY, DE and OR. And they did. The IL, NV, PA, CO and WI elections were expected to be close. And they were. The Democrats won NV and CO.

But they lost WI, IL and PA. Or did they? Oregon could hold the answer.

Oregon was the only “battleground” state in which Kerry improved his share over Gore. Kerry’s 51.4% share closely matched the unadjusted exit poll 52.0% aggregate. Since Bush won the recorded vote with 50.7-48.3%, Kerry did 3.1% better in Oregon than he did nationally. Oregon gave Obama 56.7% in 2008 (3.8% more than his 52.9% recorded national share).

What accounts for Oregon’s unique voting record? In 1992 it had the highest exit poll discrepancy in the nation (13.6%. In 1996, 10% of votes cast were uncounted. In 1998 Oregon decided to implement voting by mail – and mandated hand-counts of paper ballots in randomly-selected counties to prevent election fraud.

The evidence (statistical and documented) is overwhelming: the 2004 election was stolen. Oregon’s recorded vote confirms it. The Final 2008 National Exit Poll indicated that there was a 103% turnout of living Bush 2004 voters and 450% turnout of third-party voters. According to the Final, there were 12 million more returning Bush than Kerry voters. Therefore, Obama must have done much better than his recorded 52.9% share. Oregon had it right in 2008, just like it did in 2004.

The 2010 Oregon senate race was never in question. Wyden led by a consistent 20% in the pre-election LV polls. Wyden had a 57% recorded share – just as the polls predicted, matching Obama’s Oregon share in 2008. But if Oregon is a measure for the National electorate, how do we explain the GOP 52-47% Generic margin in 2010?

Once again, just like in 2004, the Battleground states shifted to the GOP – except for Oregon. Was it because Oregon is the only state which mandates random full hand-counts of the optically-scanned paper ballots to check the central tabulator machine-counts?

Washington now votes virtually 100% by mail. Colorado and California also had an extensive percentage of mail-in paper and absentee ballots. Is it a coincidence that in these states, the Democrats won by margins equivalent to Obama’s in 2008? Both NY senate elections exceeded Obama’s recorded share by 3-4%.

In 2004, California and New York gave Bush approximately 2.3 million of his 3.0 million vote “mandate”. In the 2010 midterms, unlike 2004, there no incentive for the GOP to pad the vote in strong Democratic states.

The Democrats lost close races in WI, IL and PA which had the following:
1) Unverifiable DRE’s
2) No mandated random hand-counts of optical scanned ballots.
3) Progressive candidates (Feingold, Sestak, Giannoulias)
4) The GOP led the final LV polls
5) Democrats tied or led the final RV polls
6) There was a late exit poll shift to the GOP

The Democrats won in states that had 100% paper ballots (OR, WA) with mandated random hand recounts or encouraged vote by mail (CO, CA). WI, PA and IL vote primarily by machine. The GOP won all three.

The tables tell the story. In the exit polls, we see changes made to the return voter mix and vote share as the polls are adjusted to match the changing vote count in real time – with no change in the number of respondents. Of course, this is standard operating procedure. Who cares if the central tabulators are being hacked in real-time?

CNN/Time provided RV and LV polling data for 18 Senate races (Table 1). Note that RV polls were not listed in the realclearpolitics.com poll averages. The Democrats led the RV polls in 11 states. They led the LV polls in 8 states (including the WV tie). They won 9. Illinois and Pennsylvania flipped from the Democrats in the RV polls to the GOP.

The average GOP 1.2% LV poll margin exceeded the RV average by 6.3%.
The average GOP LV margin exceeded the recorded average by 1.6%.
The average GOP recorded margin exceeded the RV average by 4.6%

Competitive states: 18 Exit Polls vs. Recorded Vote (Table 2)
The average GOP 4.2% recorded margin exceeded the average exit poll margin by 2.9%.
The average GOP 6.3% LV poll margin exceeded the average recorded margin by 2.1%.